Accelerating the cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay could generate thousands of jobs and yield hundreds of millions of dollars in income, revenue, property values and other benefits, says a new report by theChesapeake Bay Foundation.
From a piece in the Baltimore Sun by Tim Wheeler:
“The Chesapeake Bay can be a fertile source of jobs as well as crabs and rockfish,” contends Kim Coble, Maryland executive director for the Annapolis-based environmental group. On the other hand, she adds, the estuary’s long decline already has cost the region economically, and could cost still more if left unaddressed.
The report comes on the day that Maryland, the District of Columbia and other bay watershed states are supposed to submit their final plans to the Environmental Protection Agency for boosting their bay cleanup efforts. The EPA hopes to use those plans in finalizing its “pollution diet” for restoring the Chesapeake’s water quality by year’s end.
But it also comes amid a chorus of complaints from farmers, developers and local and state officials across the six-state region that increasing bay cleanup efforts will cost untold billions they can ill afford to pay in this recession. Critics warn the EPA’s pollution diet will bust strained budgets, require tax increases and generally cause economic devastation. Lawsuits challenging federal authority to order states to boost bay cleanup efforts appear likely.
For the full story go to:
https://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/features/green/2010/11/report_says_cleaning_bay_adds.html
Gren Whitman says
“But it also comes amid a chorus of complaints from farmers, developers and local and state officials across the six-state region that increasing bay cleanup efforts will cost untold billions they can ill afford to pay in this recession.”
Memory tells those of us willing to listen that the very same choristers would complain just as loudly if we were in the middle of an economic boom.
Clean bay or polluted bay? Profits and pollution … or … sustainable farming and development and a living bay?
We need to stop fouling our earth … and our progeny’s earth!